Main Idea and Details

We use the Treasures series for our Language Arts.  Currently, the focus is Main idea and details of a story.  My kids have a hard time with this.  (Whose doesn't!)  So I scourged the internet and found an idea I thought might work.  I added a little to the lesson and gave it a whirl.  It seemed to work.  First, I found an image of a busy puzzle.


Next, I used our EasiTeach (the software for our Interactive Whiteboards) and made purple squares to cover each image.  (One square covered the girl, the next covered the boys playing in the sand, another covered the girl on the blanket, etc.)

During the lesson I would move one square at a time and ask the students what was going on with that person.  Then I covered them back up.  When we had uncovered and recovered all the people, I went back to the first square and said "Now, is this whole puzzle about a girl pouring water?"  "No!" they said.  I left the square off this time and repeated the question for each part of the image.  I explained that each piece was just a part of the puzzle, not the whole thing.  When all the squares were moved we could step back and look at the big pictures... when you took all the details together, what was the main idea of the pictures?  Kids building a sand castle!

**I modeled the next part before splitting them up!**

Next, I split the kids up in groups of four (grouped by ability) then I gave each group an envelope with a picture cut into four pieces.  They had a few minutes to look at their picture to determine what was going on in it.  Then they shared their picture with their group.  Once everyone had shared, they put the pieces together to see what the big picture was about.  Then the group presented to the rest of the class their picture and what they thought the main idea was.  They also told us what details brought them to decide that was the main idea.

It actually worked really well.  I know we still have a lot of work to do about main idea, but this was a great hands on lesson to help us along.  I cannot take credit for the first part (the covering and uncovering of the puzzle) I found that randomly online when searching for a main idea video on Youtube.  You can look it up.  Just search for videos on "main idea and supporting details" and look for one by bkoesel.  The second part I added because I wanted them to take the lesson and use the skill so they did not forget it immediately.

I hope this helps someone in the teaching world!  Anything to get those kiddos to understand!